My Raspberry Blonde Lager Brew Day

[Motorhomebrew]

so chaps I couldn't resist beginning my raspberry blonde lager so I emptied my fermentation fridge of my conditioning other lagers and cramped a couple of my Europeans in the fridge with a stern look off the mrs as I took over half her fridge but im pretty sure you'll all agree it looks pretty dam cool.

anyway moving on. so I gathered all my brewing essentials and severe sterilisation began and then shortly afterwards so did the brew. so here we go. 2 litres of boiling water and in goes 700g of light spray malt along with 150g of dextrose.

and then comes the Canadian Blonde Malt extract.
and then I gave it a good old thrashing! !!! alot of it. so after a good stir I boiled up 440ml of the polish raspberry syrup for 5 to 10 minutes

and then in it goes.

stir,,,,,,,, stir,,,,,,,,,,,, stir and stir!!!!!!
then I filled the FV to 23 litres and pitched the yeast. ( youngs lager yeast ) the temperature was 25c

so it doesn't look very blonde but the end result will be good. so I left the FV for 24 hours to settle down and now its time to add 500gs of frozen raspberryies. I sterilised the muslin bag before adding to the FV.


so the FV is all ready for the fermentation fridge but it wont fit with the lid on so I cut up a t shirt and sterilised it before tying it ontop of the FV.

so its all ready for the fridge and in it went at 17c where ill slowly bring the temperature down to 13c. im expecting fermentation to take around 3 weeks then ill keg and prime with some of the raspberry syrup. but I will dry hop for the last few days. have you any thoughts that may go well with this type of lager?

 

[Racinsnake]

Looking good!
Could I ask where you got the kegs and tap? Wel jel :whistle:

Rob

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You have a lot of faith in that glass shelf. (pic 1)

 

[Motorhomebrew]

Looking good!
Could I ask where you got the kegs and tap? Wel jel :whistle:

Rob

leyland homebrew store. its local to me so just a short drive but if you spend over £60 its free delivery. I got kegs and tap from their. my tap is the party star deluxe. you can get a bundle of 3 kegs and a party star deluxe with 5 C02 bulbs for I think £69.99. other than that its around £7 a keg and the party star is around £45 on its own. having the tap on the keg truely does make your pint taste that much better. heres a link buddie

www.leyland-home-brew.co.uk/party-star-deluxe-mini-keg-system-1007-p.asp

 

[Racinsnake]

Cheers!!! Il look later when swmbo is out of screen sight :lol:

 

[Motorhomebrew]

Chippy im very confident that the glass will hold. besides the weight on that glass decreases gradually

 

[Motorhomebrew]

its definitely worth a look. their the cheapest around. as far as im aware

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I've seen those on that site. Are they good?

 

[Motorhomebrew]

I've seen those on that site. Are they good?

Personally I think their great and alot of people find them good to however some people on this site say they're not good weather or not thats because their not preping them properly I dont know. but I have great success with them and if you get a party star C02 tap to dispense with, well you get one hell of a great pint. they really help in aiding a full thick creamy head on your beer
but if you was to use the built in tap on the keg itself you wont get anywhere near as good of a pint as you would if you'd have used a party star tap. I completely stand by these systems.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

So do you just rack into them as oppose to a bottle as normal? Can they stand up to being quite gassy? And are they easy enough to clean out after use? Like the idea of having in fridge and good for taking away or round to houses.

 

[Motorhomebrew]

yeh just rack into the keg instead of bottle. you can prime them with as much sugar as you like but im a lager drinker and find 4 tea spoons of sugar enough to carbonate. in terms of cleaning as soon as my keg spits its last bits I pull the top bung and fill half way with hot water and a drop of washing up liquid and give it a good shake. open the bottom keg tap and turn upside down and let it out. rinse repeat rinse and that does the job. shake as much water out as possible then leave on the drainage board over night and it should be all dry inside. once dry put the dust cap on and store

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

Sounds good to me. Is the resulting pint ok and not just a load of froth?

 

[wheazy_joe]

I'm also interested in these mini kegs with the tap, they look fantastic! do you naturally carb the beer as normal and use co2 to top up, or completely force carb?

 

[wheazy_joe]

Sorry, just noticed the post on carbing, d'oh!

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I'd think you carb as Normal and co2 to ensure pressure to get the beer out.

 

[Motorhomebrew]

yep you carb your keg using sugar but be WARNED you DO NOT prime a keg the same way you would a bottle. if you over prime your keg you will get nothing but foam and also you could create that much pressure in the keg you can find your keg bulging. literally the tin of the keg will be deformed. you only need 3 to 4 teaspoons of sugar to prime a keg 4 teaspoons if you want a nicely carbed beer.

The C02 Tap is purely for dispensing and NOT carbing.

believe me you get a great pint. check this picture of my lager

 

[Motorhomebrew]

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

Looks good to me. I take it the beer comes out fine and when it stops doing so you connect a co2 canister? Or do you put one on it from the off?

 

[Motorhomebrew]

and this is my set up in my fridge. pretty cool.

 

[Motorhomebrew]

yeh pretty much. You'll find 1 C02 bulb last just over 2 kegs .

if your keg isn't cold enough you'll probably get a foamy beer. iv never had that problem as I make sure my keg is fully chilled before pouring a drink